If you want to know more about S&P - try my website for that course.

Our senses adapt to stimuli so they can be as sensitive as possible without being overloaded. One you are probably familar with is the rapid adaptation of the olfactory sense (smell). Ever walk into a room that has a room freshener? You smell it for a short period of time, but after 5 or 10 minutes, you probably won't be able to smell it. Some other ways to demonstrate sensory adaptation:
Touch - Get a piece of sandpaper (coarse grit) and rub your index finger over it. Rate the coarseness from 1 (very soft) to 7 (very coarse). Wait a minute or 2 and then do it again. Chances are, the sandpaper won't feel quite a coarse as it did the first time.
Temperature - Get 3 bowls of water - one cool, one warm, and one fairly hot. Place one hand in the cool bowl and the other in the hot bowl. Keep them there for about 2 minutes. Take both out and place them into the warm bowl of water. Bet you experience different sensations in each hand!
Vision - Dark Adaptation - Our eyes become more sensitive to light the longer you are in the dark (because of a shift to use of rods instead of cones). Get a flashlight that is opaque on all sides (so light only shines through the front). Get about 15 index cards and place them over the flashlight. Go into a dark room and turn on the flashlight with all of the cards over the light. Remove 1 card at a time until you can barely detect the light (your absolute threshold). Count how many cards are on the light. After a while, the light should start to get brighter. Keep placing cards over the light until you can barely see the beam. Full dark adaptation takes about 20-45 minutes, but you should get the idea of what is happening in about 5 or 10 minutes.

Because I always get questions about this - Information about ESP
David Myer's.

Chapter 3 exercises - Sensation and Perception. NOTE: Make sure that you reword this information in YOUR words. If you just copy word for word from the book or links, the assignment will not count. In addition, if you can't find the material on the web site, try using your book.

EXERCISE 1 - Blindspot
Blindspot -
1. What and where is your blind spot?
2. Try ALL of the experiments - the basic blindspot experiment and when we use color, lines, and circles. Tell me what happened in all of the situations.
3. Why do we get this experience (top down processing)?

EXERCISE 2 - Interactions of taste, smell, vision, temperature, and genetics
The following links demonstrate that our perception of flavor is a combination of multiple factors.
Try either the epicurious site or sutter home site
Apples
Beer
Site on information about peppers and supertasters and here is another one.
According to the above sites, how do smell, vision, temperature, and genetics affect our perception of flavor? To answer this question, use at least 1 of the wine sources, either the apple or beer site and one of the supertaster sites to help you answer this question.

EXERCISE 3 - Illusions
Hall of Illusions - Look at 1 type of illusion from 3 different categories (don't do 2 from the same group). What is the illusion? How does this illusion occur (what's the explanation as to why we perceive this)? Or you can try 2 from the above and one in the artist section (make sure you explain how the art works in detail - you will need to go back to some other sites to help explain). Some other interesting illusions can be found at the Exploratorium - but most require Shockwave to work.

EXERCISE 4 - Perception in space.
The following sites are designed by NASA to demonstrate some of the problems astronauts have in space with vision and their vestibular systems. Again, if you can't find some of the answers, look at the book or your notes.
From the NASA site - what kinds of information do the vestibular and proprioceptive senses give us? Give an example of how the body can be affected without the vestibular sense and one example of how the body can be affected without the proprioceptive sense.
According to ScienceMaster, why did space motion sickness only start after the Apollo missions? What are 2 possible treatments for space motion sickness?

EXERCISE 5 - Cochlear implants - what's the debate? BTW - some of these sites will give errors with Netscape.
The following sites are links to information about cochlear implants and the current debate about using (or not using) them. The other two links contains information on what it would sound like if you were using an implant and how they work.
About discusses the ethics of cochlear implants. I have it linked to the general page - go through some of the sections listed. There are a number of really good articles. To help you understand the issue more, you might want to try linking to the section on the Deaf culture.
This site describes how two different types work.
At the UT-D Cochlear Implant lab, there are some demos using different channels and depths to hear how clearly a sentence sounds.
1. What are cochlear implants? How do they work?
2. What type of hearing loss do people who need cochlear implants have (define as well as give a name)?
3. Using either this site or this site, what is the debate about cochlear implants?